A Cold Breeze
by bibliophilea
Summary: They broke the Indigo Deal. Now, they must pay the price. Houdentom AU. TW: body horror, gun violence


**Houdentom AU by datwerebeast on tumblr  
**

 **Cover art by datwerebeast**

 **Full cover art found alongside story on tumblr (bibliophileap DOT tumblr DOT com SLASH 172904242926) or ao3 (archiveofourown DOT org SLASH works SLASH 14308170)**

* * *

Little Johnny knew he was being followed. He knew it in the raised hairs pricking his neck, in the way the muscles in his back tightened, in the way the music in his head—

 _No, stop it. If you don't think about it, it'll go away. It has to. I'm not crazy._

With that thought, he picked up his pace, shoving his fists into his pockets as the brisk wind pulled at his clothes and whipped his dark hair into his face. He couldn't wait on their street corner for his friends any more - not even for Marcus, who was always late but always _there_ eventually - not with the prickle zinging up his spine that told him he was being watched, even though he couldn't _see_ anyone watching him, not with the fuzz patrolling this street twice and making a third round, not when he'd been waiting for thirty minutes and they still hadn't showed, _why didn't they show_ —

He stomped down on that line of thought, but it did nothing to dampen his ramping anxiety. For the first time he took stock of where he was, of where he was going. He was only a few blocks east of their street corner, waiting with the crowd for an opening to cross the street. The lake. He was heading towards the lake.

The lake had always had a calming effect on Little Johnny. He loved the water, and he'd loved swimming in it as a kid. But more than that, he loved listening to the waves, and feeling the lake effect wind against his face. The waves and the wind had no expectations of him— no matter what he did, they would always stay the same. He thought he would like to buy a place on the beach, once he had it made.

The feeling of being followed suddenly intensified, and his anxiety spiked with it. He glanced around him, but there were too many people surrounding him, too many to keep track of, too many to know who was following him, and the music was getting louder, sharper, gaining ground in the forefront of his mind—

He shoved past a bickering couple and broke into a run.

 _I'm not cracking. I'm_ not _cracking! Just gotta get to the lake, get to the lake and I can sort this out, oh why didn't they show up, they were supposed to be there..._

He thought back on the day's events as he ran, dodging in and out of traffic and pushing past people whose protests he could barely hear over the pounding of his feet against the cement. It had been one hell of a day.

* * *

Little Johnny woke up groggy and bleary eyed to the sound of his alarm clock and the vague sense that everything wasn't quite as it should be. He forced himself into a sitting position, turning off his alarm as he did so, and yawned upwards, squinting his eyes closed and stretching his arms towards his cracked ceiling. It was only as he opened his eyes at the peak of his stretch that he noticed something on his sleeve. Specks of brown, almost like dirt, though he had no clue where it came from. He brought his arm closer to his eyes and saw that no, it wasn't dirt, but some dried liquid, as if he'd been spattered in brown paint, or—

 _A burst of sound, the ratatatatat of a gun like he heard in the streets every night, but so much closer, so much louder than he'd ever heard it before, so loud he thought he'd never hear anything else ever again— but then it was over as soon as it had begun, and there was red everywhere, hot wet spattering his face, his clothes, his hair, smearing the wall before him down to the body crumpled below, coated in spreading crimson. But even worse than the red was that grin, wide and bloody and dead as it had ever been, drawing him in until it was all he could see, until the ringing in his ears became the distant song of a circus piano—_

Little Johnny violently shook his head, attempting to cast the grin and music from his mind. He wasn't scared— he _wasn't_. There was nothing to be scared of. Bodies riddled with bullet holes were all over the place - this would just be another one of those, another unsolved case to be archived by the CPD or something. He and his friends had nothing to worry about— and once they'd gotten the booze for the Outfit, they wouldn't have anything to worry about ever again.

And if Little Johnny undressed himself a little bit faster than he normally would, and scrubbed himself a little bit harder and longer than he would most days, that was neither here nor there. No one was around to see him anyway. As Little Johnny pulled on his shirt, he saw that terrible grin again in the brief darkness. A chill ran up his spine, and he shivered in the cool morning air.

 _Damn weirdo,_ he scowled. _The world was better off without that Houdini freak in it._

And with that, he grabbed his cap and left his apartment, setting a brisk pace to beat back the chill that surrounded him at this early hour. And if he heard the sound of calliope and brass, soft and carried aloft by the wind to his ears, he ignored it.

* * *

The music was easy to ignore at first - it was a little odd for a circus to run this early, but hey, anything goes in Chicago. Little Johnny just went about his work, moving steel beams where he was directed and bolting them down when he was told. He focused on the strain of his muscles, on the scrape of metal against metal as he screwed the bolts into place with a wrench. He didn't want to think about the events of last night, but the music and the repetition of work lulled him into a stupor, let his mind wander to the alley they'd fled, to the deal they'd broken, to the stuttering roar of the gun and the hot wet redness of blood and that horrible, dead, bloodstained grin staring up at him...

He broke out of his reverie with a shudder, one he attributed to the biting wind this high up. They didn't call it the Windy City for nothing. He needed something to distract his mind - something that wasn't his work or the wind or that blasted circus music that now seemed to be competing with the sound of the wind where before it was nearly drowned by it—

Little Johnny shook his head; this was getting ridiculous! What the hell was up with this music— was the circus moving or something? Who ever heard of a moving circus? And why did it have to move toward them? He set his end of the beam down with a huff and frowned, shaking his head.

"Everything all right there, Johnny?"

Little Johnny looked up to see Bill, uncurling to his full height after carefully setting down his end of the beam, staring down at him with concern. Johnny forced a smile and stretched his back, feigning a casual stance.

"Nah, it's nothing. Just this circus music is giving me a headache. It sounds like it's getting closer, isn't that crazy? A moving circus, who'da thunk it?"

He forced a laugh, and it came out a bit too high. Rather than getting Bill off his back as he'd intended, Bill took a step closer to him, the corners of his mouth turning down in a worried frown.

"Johnny... there is no music. You sure you're all right? You need to sit down or something?"

Little Johnny froze. No music? What did Bill mean no music? It was right there, a little distant, sure, but plain as the sound of metal on metal surrounding them. But Bill had the best ears on the team - he could tell if a bolt was bad just by tapping it. And if he couldn't hear it, then—

Little Johnny paled. No. He wasn't crazy. He _wasn't_. He tried to smile, widening his eyes in what he hoped was an innocent look.

"No, of course not! That was a— a joke! Ha! Yes! A joke! Very funny of me, huh?"

Bill's eyebrows nearly reached his hairline.

"Right... Well, if you need anything, I'll be over there."

And with that, Bill left to bolt down another beam.

Little Johnny slumped as Bill left. He went to bolt down a beam of his own. His hands were shaking, and he had to stare at them for a full minute before he could get them back under control. He couldn't be crazy. He just— he _couldn't be_. He was just... stressed. Yeah, that was it. Hell, last night had been the most stressful of his life. He just needed to calm himself down, maybe take some time off after the job was done, and he'd sort this out. And then the music would go away.

Sure of himself once more, Little Johnny got back to work.

* * *

The music was getting worse.

Little Johnny could hardly hear his co-workers over the calliope, and the brass nearly outdid the sound of metal on metal. His hands were working at a wrench that he could feel, but barely hear. His eyes stared out at the skyline, past old and new buildings and roads, past a dozen construction sites just like this one— to the lake, a much darker grey than the ash-colored sky, white caps of waves breaking in the distance barely discernible from here. He wished he could be out there dealing with this damn music rather than here, surrounded by people, even if they did mostly mind their own business - it just wasn't the same as being alone with the wind whipping through his hair and the waves crashing at his feet.

He grabbed the next bolt and drew his gaze back down to his work so he could get the bolt in properly. Then he let his hands take over, and let his gaze meander to the opposite building. His gaze would have moved on past the roads and buildings to the lake if not for the glint of light that caught his eye.

Where normally there was nothing but rooftop, a stone statue sat, crouched like a gargoyle, but otherwise like no gargoyle Little Johnny had ever seen. The horns were what caught his eye - they were made of some sort of crystal, icy blue and almost translucent, as if shards from a glacier had been used to create them. The same material had been used to form its left arm - sharp angles and planes tapering into claws that looked like they could cut through steel. The arm and horns were entirely incongruous with the rest of the body, though they all were clearly crafted incredibly finely— the body managed to look burly, yet also fuzzy and soft, though it was clearly made from stone. The overall effect was that of a giant dog, or a bear - like no other statue Little Johnny had ever seen. He would have simply noted the statue and moved on, if not for the eyes. The eyes seemed to be staring at him, glaring at him even. They glared straight through him in anger and disappointment, staring into his soul with judgement and find him wanting—

Little Johnny blinked.

And it was gone.

But so was the music.

"-Smith! What the hell are you doing?"

Little Johnny jumped, nearly falling off of his perch, and quickly pivoted. "Ah sorry sir, what was that?"

Mr. Arnold rolled his eyes. "Quit daydreaming and— hey are you okay? Did your girlfriend break up with you or something?"

"What? No, I'm fine." He wiped his eyes. "It's just the wind."

"That's the spirit! A man mustn't bring his personal life to work!" Mr. Arnold leaned in closer, as if to speak in confidence, but his voice remained at the same level. "You ask me, she wasn't worth it. She may be a looker 'n all, but the gal's gotta have a heart that beats for you, you ask me!"

"Sir, I'm fine, I swear!" but Little Johnny was smiling - annoying and abrasive as Mr. Arnold could be, right now, his voice was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard.

"All right, all right," Mr. Arnold chuckled. "Well, if you need anything, I'll be walking the floor." He patted Little Johnny on the back awkwardly, then quickly drew away. "Now get back to work!"

Little Johnny practically skipped to the steel bars and grabbed the end of one of them. The circus music was just a dim figment in the back of his mind. He'd meet up with his friends later; see if they'd had the same crazy day he'd been having. Then things would be all right.

* * *

He just needed to get to the lake. Get to the lake, head for the docks, let the water and the wind calm him down— then things would be all right.

He blazed past a couple of kids in the street, leaping over a homeless man as he sprinted down an alleyway. He took the corner at full speed, anchoring himself with his hand clutching the brick corner of the building, bursting through the adjacent alley and climbing the fence. His feet pounded into the wood of the docks on the other side, but he could hardly hear it over the damned circus music playing in his head, louder with every step, _make it stop make it stop why wouldn't it stop_ —

Little Johnny skidded to a halt at the wooden railing, hands catching splinters as he nearly tumbled over the edge. He took a step back and put his hands to his knees, his heart pounding, his breathing hard and fast. He hadn't run for that long or that fast since he was a kid. There was no one around him on this deserted stretch of dock, no one to see how he'd burst over the fence like a madman and nearly run into the lake, but the hairs on the back of his neck still prickled. He was still being watched.

His breathing under control, he sighed and leaned his elbows onto the railing, wiping his hands over his sweaty face. The sun had nearly set, but even if he were facing the right direction, he couldn't see it. The clouds were just as thick as they had been that afternoon, and the only indication of the day slipping by was the way the darkness had crept upon the dock, the way the lake had turned from slate to inky black, the horizon barely discernible as a meeting of the blackness of the lake and the deep, dark grey of the clouds. He was tired. Tired of running, tired of being scared, tired of this damn circus music invading his mind. He just wanted the day to end, just wanted all of this to be some terrible dream.

He stared listlessly at the reflection of Chicago glinting in the inky blackness, at the way the lights shimmered and scattered and broke and rejoined with the choppiness of the water and the ebbing and flowing of the waves. He relished the feeling of the wind carding through his hair, brushing against his cheeks and the back of his neck, its coolness calming the heat of his skin and the pounding of his heart. He could hear it as it blew past his ears - barely, over the music, but he could hear it. But when he turned his attention to the waves crashing against the dock... nothing. Not even when the spray hit his face. He huffed and turned his back to the lake, angrily stuffing his hands in his pockets.

And then he pulled his right hand out, as if it had been burned. There was something there. Something in his pocket. Even though he hadn't put anything in his pocket all day. He was sure of it.

He was freaking out. First the music, then the statue, then his friends didn't show up, and someone was following him, _watching_ him, and now this! Someone had put something in his pocket! Had gotten close enough to him to reach out and touch him, and had put whatever it was in his pocket! Who had done it? Probably someone when he was running through the streets, but how could anyone just reach out and put something in his pocket without him noticing? It felt like paper, whatever it was - not your average, run of the mill paper, but the good stuff, like they gave out as party invitations and whatnot. And he wanted no part of it, not even if it was an invitation to the fanciest party he'd ever see.

But still, he felt a morbid curiosity - what kind of psycho just went and put stuff in people's pockets? And what kind of thing would they put in someone's pocket? What sort of note needed fancy paper? And so, Little Johnny carefully reached two fingers into his pocket, and plucked out what looked like... a ticket. A great big ticket. Yellow, like a stop sign. But with green writing that almost seemed to glow in the darkness.

 _Congrats JOHN ROBERT SMITH!  
You were chosen to join the magnificent troop of __**CIRCUS GOTHICA**_ _!  
Be prepared as the Grand Master Daniel Houdentom comes to take you for Eternity_

Little Johnny paled. Houdentom. That was the name of the guy they'd made a deal with to get the info on that booze shipment. The guy with the dead, creepy smile that had haunted his thoughts throughout the day. The guy Frankie had riddled with bullet holes.

The wind picked up, cold and bitter, and Little Johnny snapped. He leaped from the railing, spun in place, his hair whipping into a frenzy, his eyes wild and searching against the night.

"WHERE ARE YOU?" he screamed. "YOU— YOU DON'T SCARE ME!"

From behind him, a cold breath. A course whisper against his ear. "How should I scare you?"

A screech burst through the air, echoing over the lake. It took a moment for Little Johnny to realize that his mouth was open, that the sound had come from his own throat. He whirled around, then stumbled backwards as he came nose to nose with the palest man he'd ever seen. His skin seemed almost blue in its pallor, and his hair was definitely blue - blue and long and almost angular in its spikes, blue like glacial ice and somehow wrong in some way he couldn't quite place. He was dressed in some sort of teal circus get up ( _Of course he is,_ Little Johnny thought hysterically, a giggle trying to worm its way past his clenched teeth, but he held it in). Black spades covered the buttons of his shirt and the backs of his gloves; ice coated his suit and shoes and icicles hung from his shoulder tassels. Icy blue mist bled from his wrists, dissipating into the night air. His eyes were black pits, pinpricks of green shining from their depths. His grin was awful, dead, and awfully familiar.

It was only then that it clicked. Though everything else had changed, that grin, dead and terrible, remained the same. He'd had it when making that deal with them— information on the O'Donnell Brothers booze for a cut of the money. He'd had it when he'd fallen in a hail of bullets, blood staining his teeth. And he had it now, widening as he saw the glint of recognition in Little Johnny's eyes.

"You're— you're dead. Frankie killed you!"

Houdentom chuckled, a malicious sound echoing through the circus music painfully playing in his head. "Indeed he did! And that, John Robert Smith, is why I am here."

Night had fallen. It should have been near pitch black out here, with naught but the reflection of city lights off the clouds above and the lake below to light the docks out here. But Little Johnny could see everything clearly - the wooden railing, the dock, the warehouses inland, Houdentom - all of it was visible, lit by a suffuse blue-green glow. A glow which emanated from Houdentom himself.

Little Johnny shuddered as a cold wind blew— and suddenly, he knew exactly what was wrong with Houdentom's hair. It didn't move. Nor did the tassels on Houdentom's shoulders. Nor did the coattails of Houdentom's jacket.

Houdentom took a step toward Little Johnny.

Little Johnny ran.

* * *

The circus music was everything. It replaced the howling of the wind that reddened Little Johnny's nose. It overtook the pounding of his feet on the wood of the docks. It sang over his own ragged breaths. It drowned out everything but the pounding of his heart. But even so, Houdentom's voice cut through the music like a shard of ice hurtling through flesh.

"Running will do you no good." Houdentom's voice was amused, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once. "You cannot run from the Circus, any more than you can run from your sins."

Little Johnny hurtled around a corner, hand gripping a wooden post to make the turn. It was coated with frost, and the ice and splinters bit his hand. He didn't care— the fence was only a few yards away, and once he'd hopped it, he'd leave that Houdentom freak in the dust in the streets he knew like the back of his hand, the streets he had known since he was a kid. So focused on the fence he was, he didn't notice the figure before it until he was a few feet away. It was Johnny.

"Johnny! Oh thank god it's you, we gotta go, that Houdentom freak survived somehow and he's after me— J-Johnny? What's—" Little Johnny gasped as he really looked at Johnny - took in the bluish, frost-covered skin, the bloodshot, bleeding eyes, and worse. His arm was missing, the stump ragged and red, but not bleeding like it should, as if there were no blood left to bleed, no beating heart left to pump it. Little Johnny was frozen to the spot, unable to process the sight before his eyes.

Then Johnny moved. He jerkily reached out with his stump, as if to grab Little Johnny with an arm that wasn't there. He opened his mouth, and his voice came out in a whisper, cracking on the vowels, yet audible over the circus music running circles in Little Johnny's head: "Come on, the pigs'll be here any minute."

Little Johnny turned tail and ran.

Houdentom's voice started up again, drawing a chilling finger down his spine— or maybe that was his sweat rolling down his back, chilled through his shirt by the air surrounding him.

"You, _Little Johnny_ , you are incredibly lucky to join your little friends in Circus Gothica— no, don't deny it." Houdentom chuckled cruelly— as if he could, running as he was, exhausted and panting as he was, _confronted by the twisted memory of his friend as he was_ —

Little Johnny shuddered. He must be cracking. There was no other explanation. Otherwise, his friend was dead, and he'd come back to life frozen and twisted and broken and _wrong_ —

"After all," Houdentom's voice dipped lower, took a sinister turn, "you and your _Little Friends_ broke the Indigo Deal."

Little Johnny rounded another corner, breath fogging in the cold, only to fall back and scream in pain as something shattered against his face, broken bits cutting into his cheeks, his nose, his forehead. He opened his eyes and screamed again, scrambling back at the sight before him. What had once been a fist, but was now a tangled mass of flesh and bone, dangled from an arm extended above him. That arm was attached to a body with a face familiar in its structure, but unfamiliar in its frost-covered pallor and its expressionless countenance. For half a second it didn't move— didn't shake or cringe with pain from the hand, didn't shift its stance, didn't even _breathe_ — but then it jerkily drew back its mangled hand, taking a slow step forward. Its mouth opened, and the voice of Marcus— raspier than he'd ever heard it, but unmistakably _Marcus's voice_ — bubbled past its lips, past the circus music to reach Little Johnny's ears.

"That wasn't part of the plan."

At the sound, Little Johnny squeaked and stumbled to his feet. He slipped on the ice forming on the dock, falling hard to his palms and knee. He scrambled back up, ignoring the blood he left staining the ground, finding his footing and taking off, away from Marcus, away from Johnny, away from this madness that couldn't be real _but Marcus had hit him, had cut into his face with the shattered pieces of his fist, and hallucinations couldn't_ do _that, he could still feel the sting of those cuts as the cold wind ripped at them, just as visceral, just as_ real _as the pain in his palms and his knee_ —

"From the moment your friend - Franklin Federici, I believe it was - chose to, ah, tap away on the Chicago Typewriter..." Houdentom again, his voice echoing in Little Johnny's head in time with the circus music. Little Johnny turned yet another corner, trying to escape up an alley between two warehouses, and wasn't surprised to see another figure in the distance, its head misshapen, tommy gun barely visible through the fog that was encroaching on the docks.

"Here's your payment." The voice of Frankie, garbled and barely intelligible, echoed across the alley, and Little Johnny threw himself back around the corner as the sound of gunfire burst across the docks. He wasn't fast enough— a bullet caught him in the shoulder and he screeched, sobbed with pain, clutching his arm and refusing to look at the wound, he'd seen _enough_ blood in the past 24 hours, had dealt with _enough_ crazy to last him a lifetime, had had _enough_ —

"... your souls belonged to me." Houdentom finished his statement, his voice lowering, cutting off Little Johnny's frantic sobs and freezing the hairs on the back of his neck. He couldn't stop. Not while that freak was still out there, still _taunting_ him. Tears and sweat freezing on his face, wind numbing his fingers and his nose and cheeks, eyes obscured by fog and his own exhaustion, Little Johnny choked back another sob and ran.

He had no clue where he was going, unable to see anything in this fog. With the cold and pain, he almost didn't care— he just knew that he needed to get _away_ , to find a place where he could be safe enough to gather his bearings, to figure this out, but he couldn't think with this damn circus music blaring in his head—

He hit something with his midsection, shouted in surprised pain as he folded over it before forcing himself to unbend, his shoulder screaming with the movement. He didn't want to see what he'd hit, didn't want to know what horrors lay in store for him this time around—

A railing. It was just a railing.

Little Johnny chuckled, then burst out laughing, hysteria cracking his voice. A railing— all the crazy horrors he'd seen tonight, and he was scared by a damn railing.

He tried to stop his laughter— what the hell was he doing, he needed to _run!_ He needed to get away from the docks, away from the madman whose voice was chasing him down! He stuffed his fist in his mouth and bit down, eyes watering as the cold, bitter wind whipped past him. He decided on a whim to follow it - it had never let him down before, it was the lake's constant companion - but turning on his heels to face where the wind was going, he saw Houdentom, only a couple yards away from him, smirk dead on his face, unnatural glow coloring the fog blue-green.

He turned to his right, but couldn't run— more frost-covered railing blocked his way, and then there was the lake, slowly freezing over in the cold, chunks of ice sloshing up and down the pole with splashes he couldn't hear.

A corner. He'd run himself right into a corner. Right where Houdentom wanted him.

He was trapped.

He was trapped, and he was cold and numb, and he could feel frost forming on his clothes and his shoulder ached like hell and none of this was fair. He should have been out celebrating with his friends! They were gonna have it made! There should've been no creepy circus music, no weird disappearing statues or crazy circus freaks or frozen dead friends coldly impersonating fragments of his memory of last night! And sure, they shouldn't have killed Houdentom, but he was a freak who was asking for it, and it wasn't even them! It was just Frankie who did it; the rest of them weren't planning on going back on the deal!

Little Johnny clumsily curled his numb hands into fists, his palms dully stinging with the movement. It just wasn't fair.

The cold wind blew at his back, making him shiver. He refused to look anywhere but Houdentom's shoes. They were some sort of black leather, coated with frost. Ice seemed to emanate from where he stood.

"Y-you can't!" Little Johnny stuttered. "It was Frankie who broke the d-deal, you weren't supposed to d-d-die, t-take him! D-don't take m-m-me!"

Houdentom's smirk widened. He chuckled. His chuckle grew into a full throated laugh that echoed in Little Johnny's head, the laughter and the circus music alike bouncing off each other and the inside of his skull until it was all just noise, blaring brass colliding with circus piano running headlong into mad laughter and it was more than Johnny could take, he couldn't see, couldn't _feel_ anything over the noise and he wanted to scream for it to stop—

And then it did. Houdentom's laughter dimmed back to a light chuckle, and the circus music descended back to a forte in his mind.

"Oh, Johnny!" Houdentom exclaimed, still chuckling. "Johnny John Johnny! You're all the same!" His grin widened. "You and your little friends stick together like rotting trash, uncaring of the stench and disease you bring with you wherever you go— but the moment things get tough, you're at each other's throats." His words took on a mocking tone. " _Oh don't take me, take him instead! He made me do it, he did it! I didn't do anything; it's his fault, not mine! I just got dragged into it!_ " He adopted a scathing look. "But you're all just self-serving little worms."

"P-p-p-please. I-I'll do b-b-better. I p-p-p-promise!" Little Johnny didn't know when he'd fallen to his knees. He couldn't feel himself speak. He could barely feel the pain in his shoulder, let alone in his palms and his knee.

Houdentom let out a mean chuckle, hollow and dead as his grin. He spoke coldly, with finality. "Frankly, I don't give a damn. I don't care who pulled the trigger. You and your little friends broke the Indigo Deal. You sealed your fate. And the fun has only just begun!"

Little Johnny couldn't feel, couldn't move— couldn't do anything but shiver. He saw Houdentom extend his hand towards him, and for an insane second he thought he was going to help him up. But suddenly, where Little Johnny had felt numb and cold and heavy, he now felt numb and cold and light as a feather. Houdentom somehow grew closer without moving an inch, his hand extended towards Little Johnny's face. He turned without meaning to, and watched with shock and horror as a body— _his_ body— covered in frost and tinged blue, lips purple, palms coated in frozen blood— slowly fell sideways, its head hitting the railing and sliding against it before it tumbled into the slushy lake below.

He continued to turn - he couldn't stop if he wanted to - and was faced with that terrible dead grin, much closer than before, that hand leaking ice blue mist somehow beneath him, enveloping him in cold. But for once, his gaze wasn't captured by that grin— rather, it focused on a point beyond Houdentom, on a swirling spot in the fog that glowed bright teal and green. The spot grew, slowly and steadily, teal and green streaks whirling around each other in an endless dance, fog reflecting the colors and swirling around it, making it hard to tell where the fog ended and the swirling spot - now giant circle - began. As Little Johnny stared into the swirling portal, the circus music grew louder still, more discordant. And it was joined by... other sounds. Screams mad with pain, with terror, with horror, with who knew what else. Rending flesh, like the sounds he'd heard at the meat factories every day before he'd moved on to construction. Sloshing sounds and stomping sounds and slithering and skittering sounds and all manner of sounds he could name. And sounds he had no name for. Sounds he had never heard before, could never even imagine. Sounds that would have threatened to burst his brain had he a brain to burst, shatter his bones had he bones to shatter. Sounds that drove his very soul mad.

Houdentom's grin widened, baring pointed teeth. A cold wind blew towards him, past him, pulled into the portal; and finally, finally, Houdentom's hair and tassels and coattails felt its touch. "Now, _Little Johnny_ — welcome to Circus Gothica!"

* * *

 **Thank you for reading. Any form of commentary or feedback is appreciated.**


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